Abusive English Language Analysis

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of religious signs or names applied derisively. Barred for many years from public conversations, blasphemy used to be perceived as an infraction of the law. Today, however - owing to the ubiquitous secularization - it is rather harmless, with the exception of the Islamic community, where it may eventuate in capital punishment (Jay 1992; 2000). Correspondingly to the above-discussed distinction between swearing and cursing, the difference between profane and blasphemous speech lies purely in the purpose – while the application of profanity is described as an objectless custom, blasphemy is treated as an intentional rebellion (Hughes 2006; Jay 2000). The next indispensable class found within the realm of crude language is obscenity. In the …show more content…

For the sake of discussion and the upcoming analysis, we shall offer a short overview of the inventories of the most abusive English and Polish lexical units. With regard to the English language, it is crucial to touch upon the list of the worst maledictions compiled by the BBC in 2000, which includes words such as: cunt, motherfucker, fuck, wanker, nigger, bastard, prick, bollocks, arsehole, paki, shag, whore, twat, piss off, spastic Leigh and Lepine (2005:). An alternative catalogue advanced by McEnery (2006: 30) groups maledictions in accordance with their offensiveness - here, the categories are as follows: very mild (bird, bloody, crap, damn, god, hell, hussy, idiot, pig, pillock, sod, son-of-a-bitch,tart), mild (arse, balls, bitch, bugger, christ, cow, dickhead, git, jesus, jew, moron, pissed off, screw, shit, slag, slut, sod, tit, tits, tosser), moderate (arsehole, bastard, bollocks, gay, nigger, piss, paki, poofter, prick, shag, spastic, twat, wanker, whore), strong (fuck) and very strong (cunt, motherfucker). The elements of the most powerful classes introduced by McEnery have been also singled out by Fagersten (?), who pronounces fuck, motherfucker and cunt the most offensive English words. As far as the Polish language is concerned, the literature related to the topic of swearing is somewhat deficient; hence, the list of the most offensive Polish lexemes is yet to be systematized. Nevertheless, on the basis of miscellaneous lexicographic sources, including the works of Grochowski (1995), Dokowicz (2014) and janKomunikant (2011) one may assume that the most derogatory Polish words are: chuj, gówno, jebać, jebaka, kurwa, kutas, pedał, pieprzyć, pierdolić, pizda and

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